


the dangers of last minute shopping

by Werepirechick



Category: Sally Face (Video Games)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Shopping, Friendship, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Shopping Malls, Teenage Dorks, aka everyone loves sal a lot and worries about him, but also i pretend nothing hurts and everything is fine, so have an out of season fic, this fic only came to me a few days ago and i regret not having the thought earlier, this is honestly just nonsense so have some ridiculous teen friends, this is set sometime after the first ep and before the second ep or something, tho if you squint you'll see me shipping an ot3 in here but not really, worried friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-07 18:04:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17370791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Werepirechick/pseuds/Werepirechick
Summary: The four horsemen embark on last minute Christmas shopping in a mall packed wall to wall with people.Sal gets lost.Everyone panics, except for Sal.





	the dangers of last minute shopping

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first sally face fic! or, at least its the first one i deem okay enough to publish on here. i'm p new to the fandom so idk if i'll measure up to peoples' standards for characterization, but i did my best :')
> 
> have some out of season shenanigans and dorks, to soothe the pain of episode four.

Sal is a bit more excited than usual, this Christmas. He’s got a decent number of friends to buy presents for, after all, and three of them are accompanying him to the town over from Nockfell for shopping.

Larry, Ashley, and Todd are good company. Sal genuinely enjoys every minute he gets to hang with them, even with the press and shove of last minute shoppers interrupting their conversation. The mall they’re in is _packed,_ probably because it’s the largest one in the area, and everyone else from smaller suburbs and towns came to it for their shopping, too.

“No, I’m _telling you,”_ Larry says empathetically, “you can’t kill Wolverine. That’s his whole thing- he just heals up and he’s fine.”

“Thor is a literal _god!”_ Ashley fires back. “He’d just keep hitting him with thunder until he was dust. Boom, dead, done deal right there.”

“His powers are lightning, actually,” Todd interjects mildly. “He calls himself the god of thunder, but it’s the lightning he attacks with. Thunder is just the sound the lightning makes.”

“Wolverine could totally survive that.”

“Not if Thor disintegrated _all_ his molecules.”

“They’re allies anyway, so I doubt he’d do that-”

Sal isn’t as much of a comics buff as his friends, but it’s fun to listen to their debate anyway. He’s mostly trying to remember the directions they got from the mall map- they’ve been trying (unsuccessfully) to find the music store for almost twenty minutes now. Which is partially due to them pretending for the first fifteen minutes that they didn’t need a map to the unfamiliar mall.

Oh well. The journey to the destination is half the fun.

“Hey, guys,” Sal starts, glancing at the signs bolted to the ceiling as they pass them, “I think we were supposed to turn- guys, guys hey-”

No one is listening, and Sal finds himself getting shoved to the side by an oncoming woman and her three kids. “Oh, uh- s’cuse me, ma’am, I’m just-” He’s cut off as a man heading the opposite direction as the mom and kids pushes him back into the crowd again. “I- sorry, I’m just trying to-” A group of college kids get in his way and sweep him into their pack, carrying him even further from his friends. “Okay, I just- excuse me, _please_ let me through, my friends-”

Sal isn’t loud enough to be heard over the bustling mall crowd, apparently, since not a single person stops to let him through.

“ _Fuck,_ come on!” he protests, and continues to get dragged away by the flow of human traffic.

“-okay, you know what? Let’s let Sal decide,” Larry says, waving his hands at Ashley so she can’t cut him off again. “Sally, dude, you agree with me, right?”

They all glance backwards at Sal expectantly.

Except, he’s not there.

Larry stares for a second, uncomprehending, and then asks aloud, “Sal?” He turns in a circle, using his height to peer over heads. “Sal? _Sally Face?”_

“Sal? _Sal?”_ Ashley joins in, stretching on her tip toes and grabbing Larry’s shoulder for support.

“Uh, I think we lost him,” Todd says, grimacing as someone bumps into him. The crowd of people moving around them shoots dirty looks their way for blocking the flow, but none of them really care.

“Oh my god we _lost him,”_ Larry says, turning in another frantic circle- he still can’t catch even a hint of the familiar blue hair of his friend, nor the mask Sal is wearing. It’s just people and people and _more people_ \- none of them Sal.

“ _SAL?”_ Ashley shouts over the crowd, cupping her mouth. “ _SAL IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, JUMP AND WAVE YOUR ARMS!”_

The most reaction they get is confused looks and disgruntled murmurs for their raised voices.

“Oh my god we lost him,” Larry repeats in an even more distressed voice.

“Look, it’s fine,” Todd says, trying to calm them both down, “we just have to backtrack a little. You stay in one spot when you get lost, right? Sal’s smart, he probably did that.”

“Right, right, of course,” Ashley says, and then proceeds to try and muscle her way through the Christmas shoppers. She’s rebuffed for it immediately as a man with a dozen bags on his arms knocks her backwards, her shoulder hitting Larry’s chest dead center. He catches her without complaint.

“So this might take a little while,” Todd admits.

“ _Sal we’re comin’ for ya!”_ Larry yells over the crowd, and dives against the flow towards their missing friend’s location.

 

-/-

 

Sal stumbles out of the crowd, _finally,_ after what feels like forever. He huffs and undoes his scarf around his neck, letting it hang loose as he shoves his pigtails around, trying to feel less like he’s just been run over ten times.

“The least they could do is say _sorry,”_ he mutters, checking his prosthetic’s straps- they’re still holding tight, which is a relief. He turns around to see what store he’s ended up in.

Sal blinks. There are rows of records and CDs on shelves, one of the more recent rock songs that’s been released playing on the overhead radio, and a couple people with twice as many earrings as he has browsing the aisles.

Oh. It’s the music store they were all trying to find. What a stroke of luck.

Might as well take this opportunity to buy his friends their Christmas gifts. Sal hadn’t been sure how he’d keep the three of them from seeing his purchases, but he figured he’d manage it somehow. This solves that problem before it arose, though, so he’s not going to waste the chance.

He decides he’ll go find his friends again afterwards- knowing them, there’s a chance they’ll end up in the food court or something. They shouldn’t be too hard to locate, either; Larry is pretty easy to spot even in this crowd.

Sal puts his hands in his jacket’s pockets and wanders into the store, bobbing his head gently in time with the drumbeat of the radio.

 

-/-

 

“Sal’s dad is gonna kill me, I know it,” Larry says, blowing his long bangs out of his face. “Scratch that- my _mom_ is gonna kill me for losing Sal!”

“We weren’t even here for a whole hour, _how does this happen,”_ Ashley exclaims.

“I think we’re just very talented at attracting disaster,” Todd replies.

“Do you see him?” Larry asks desperately.

“Turn around again; maybe he’s down the other hall!”

Larry turns carefully, working hard to not overbalance and drop Ashley, who is sitting on his shoulders to get a vantage point while Todd circles them, acting as a failsafe if Ashley were to fall.

“ _Do you see him yet?”_ Larry asks again, voice tight. Ashley isn’t exactly heavy, but there are people _everywhere,_ and he’s not used to lifting this much weight for so long. Especially not while being jostled and bumped against every few seconds.

“No! Turn around again!”

Larry groans, but does so.

 

-/-

 

“What’s with the mask?”

“It’s a prosthetic,” Sal replies, tone even and unaffected at the common question.

“Oh, uh.” The clerk stutters for a moment, a sheen of teenage sweat on his brow. Sal is used to people stopping him in stores, most of them clearly worried he’s a robber or something. This clerk though just seems like he was hoping for a fun conversation, rather than accidentally inquiring about Sal’s severe scarring.

“Can- can I help you find anything?” asks the clerk, a tad awkwardly.

Sal figures he should cut the guy some slack- a prosthetic _is_ off-putting to most people. Sal’s friends are just weird exceptions. “Sure. You have any Sanity’s Fall merch?”

“Uhhh… maybe?”

Sal lets him run over to the person working cashier; a woman who’s got three visible tattoos, a nose ring, and clearly has worked here far longer. He takes the moment to move over to the collection of headphones, picking up a chunky pair and sliding them over his ears. The music currently selected is jazz, which isn’t bad, but not what Sal likes to listen to. He flicks through the try-me CDs in the machine and selects Metallica.

 

-/-

 

“He’s on the short side, blue hair, scarf and fingerless gloves-”

“The _name,_ son,” says the security guard tiredly.

“-Sal Fisher,” Larry says quickly. “But Sally Face works, too, sometimes.”

The security guard rolls his eyes, clearly too grumpy from the number of people in his mall to ask about the nickname. He presses down on the intercom on his desk, leaning to the mic and saying, “ _Sal Fisher, please come to the security desk. Again- Sal Fisher, please come to the security desk. Your friends are looking for you.”_

“There’s a chance he might’ve been trampled, honestly,” Todd says thoughtfully. “I mean, the crowds are big enough, and he is pretty small.”

“Don’t _say that,”_ Larry hisses.

“It’s a realistic possibility. I like to have my bases covered with my expectations for outcomes.”

“Todd I swear to god-”

“We’re terrible friends,” Ashley despairs, face in her hands. “We didn’t even _notice_ he disappeared!”

The security guard sighs loudly as the three of them spin circles of worried conversation.

 

-/-

 

“Um, sir- or, ma’am? Um??”

Sal holds up a finger, shaking his head harder. An Iron Maiden song shouldn’t be interrupted by conversation, at least for the first listen around.

“Uh, the merchandise, it’s-” The clerk tries to wave his hand in front of Sal’s face. “Sir- ma’am- uh, whichever, hey, you listening to me-?”

“I said _hold on,”_ Sal insists as politely as he can, and turns up the music’s volume to the point he can’t hear even someone talking directly to him, let alone the ambient noise from outside the store. He flicks his pigtails as the guitar solo starts, the crescendo ripping through his hearing _just right._

“I’m not paid enough for this,” mutters the clerk, unheard by Sal.

 

-/-

 

“Well, that’s a full fifteen minutes of him being missing,” Todd announces, looking at his watch. “He’s not responding to the announcements, and we’ve used up almost an hour of our three hour shopping trip limit.”

“We have to send out a search party,” Larry says, body posture rigid. He looks ready to start fighting through the Christmas shoppers again, and from how his fists are curled tight, that’s probably his intent.

“We should have done that in in the first place,” Ashley scolds anxiously, “instead of walking in circles with me on your shoulders!”

“That was your idea!”

“Yeah, and you should have told me it was a stupid one right off the bat!”

“Guys,” Todd says.

“You would’ve made me do it anyway and you know it.”

“I would _not_.”

“Guys,” Todd repeats.

“Look, we’re wasting time,” Larry says. “I’ll start on this end of the mall and work back to where we lost him, you go around the outside and take the other entrance in- Todd will stay here and coordinate the search over the intercom-”

“Yeah, no, you can’t do that,” says the security guard.

“ _Guys,”_ Todd exclaims.

_“What?”_ Ashley and Larry respond.

Todd points next to himself.

“Who’re you looking for?” Sal asks curiously, a plastic bag hanging from his arm.

“ _Sal!”_

_“Sally!”_

“Um-” Sal finds himself squished in a group hug very suddenly. He pats Ashley and Larry’s backs comfortingly despite his confusion. “Uh, hi? Missed you guys, too.”

“We’re so, so sorry, dude,” Larry says earnestly into Sal’s hair. He’s got his face pressed to Sal’s scalp, so his breath tickles Sal.

“ _So_ sorry,” Ashley adds on, squeezing Sal tighter.

“Congrats on finding your friend,” says the security guard blandly. “Now go away and stop blocking the traffic already.”

Sal cranes his neck to look at Todd around their other two friends. “What happened?” he asks, patting Larry and Ashley’s backs still. “I was only gone for like, twenty minutes.”

“Think about what you just said,” Todd says, an amused smile on his face.

Sal does. Then he thinks about the worried expressions Larry and Ashley had had when he walked up to the security desk, aiming to call them all over the intercom.

“Ah,” he says, putting together the puzzle pieces. His two tall friends release him finally, and Sal offers them an apologetic look- he’s smiling sheepishly under his mask, but they don’t see that, so he puts that emotion into his words. “Sorry, guys. I didn’t mean to get lost.”

“It’s fine,” Todd says, gently herding them away from the security desk. “Let’s just get a move on and find the music store.”

“Oh, I found that already. I can take you guys there.”

_“Great,”_ Ashley says, and grabs Sal’s hand firmly.

Sal blinks at her. She gives him a wry smile. “So we don’t get separated again.”

Sal considers that, and then nods. “That makes sense.”

“Fuck yeah it does.” Larry grabs Sal’s other hand. “Let’s not do that again, ever. C’mon, Todd. Join the daisy chain.”

Todd shakes his head, but takes Larry’s hand.

“And off we go!” Ashley says and directs their group back into the mob. Sal laughs, partially because this is inconveniencing everyone who wants to push between them to get by, and mostly because it’s a ridiculous yet effective solution.

 

-/-

 

“Hi,” Sal says to the clerk. “I’m back.”                             

The teenager stares at them all holding hands in his store.

“…Great,” he says belatedly, sounding like he means that as insincerely as possible.

Sal gives a wide smile no one can see, because it matches the shit eating grin Larry and Ashley have, and even Todd is smirking by this point.

“D’you got any Sanity’s Fall stuff here?” Larry asks immediately, and then Sal has to figure out how to dissuade his friend from buying the gifts Sal already got for him.

**Author's Note:**

> things friends should do more: hold hands.
> 
> i don't see mine very often, but i like holding hands with them. i also panic when i lose sight of my much shorter companions in a busy mall. this fic wasn't based on an actual experience but more of a semi-realistic concern.
> 
> hope some people enjoyed this fic! lemme know how i did in the comments if you can :'3c


End file.
